Sep 30, 2007

Dammit

Sep 26, 2007

WE WIN

America, you’ve voted, and the results are in! Drumroll, please. This year’s oh-so proud winners are:Icons:Orville RedenbacherChick-Fil-A CowsSlogans: The Few. The Proud. The Marines—US Marine Corps DING! You are now free to move about the country!—Southwest Airlines

Obviously my post from the 18th was what put it over the top. Obviously.

Sep 21, 2007

Motivator on a roll

Sep 18, 2007

Vote early, vote often

Email from Marine Corps Manpower Branch:

Dear Marine Corps Family,

"The Few. The Proud. The Marines." is more than just a slogan. These three sentences represent who we are, epitomizing the challenge of becoming (The Few), and the reward of being (The Proud), one of the elite (The Marines). Suffice it to say, Few slogans convey such a Proud tradition.

Our tagline has been a foundation in the Marine Corps for over thirty years. Now we have the opportunity to immortalize these words into America's civilian culture as well. "The Few. The Proud." has been nominated BEST SLOGAN for the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. The Marine Corps joins a list of 26 other brands that will compete for entry based on total number of votes received online at http://advertising.yahoo.com/advertisingweek_07/slogan_poll.html

Whether you are one of the few and the proud, or simply one of the faithful to those who bear the title United States Marine, we ask that you browse to the URL: http://advertising.yahoo.com/advertisingweek_07/slogan_poll.html to vote for the slogan that has meant so much to so many. If you have Internet access in more than one location, you can vote more than once, so remember to vote from home, work, the library, and anywhere else you can find a computer!

With a dedicated constituency of active, former, and civilian members of the Marine Corps, strength of message, and patriotic nature of our institution, we are confident a concentrated effort will deliver "The Few. The Proud." into the hall of fame, establishing it in its rightful place among elite American brands.

Sep 15, 2007

63 years past

On 15 September 1944, American forces consisting of the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 81st Infantry Division, landed at Peleliu. It was supposed to be something akin to a snatch and grab job for our guys. It was supposed to take days, and the Japanese enemy was estimated at no more than few thousand.

In reality, there were over 11,000 Japanese defending that tiny spit of sand and rock.

When it was all said and done 10 weeks - not a few days - later, there were over 2,300 American dead and more than three times as many wounded.

My Grandfather was a Navy Corpsman there, and his stories about that battle were quite a thing. He had one story of a wounded Marine who came to the aid station with a perfect, clean bullet hole through his hand. The doctors took one look at the guy and told him to sit and wait his turn. They were dealing with sucking chest wounds and all other manner of nastiness. He was not a priority. By the time anyone got back to him, he was dead. No one had bothered to treat him for shock, and he simply died quietly while no one was looking.

There are all sorts of "coulda, woulda, shoulda" stories that come from any battle. There's still an argument out there that Peleliu was a waste of time and resources - that it could have just as easily been bypassed.

This same argument is applied by some to the battle of Iraq as well. Yes, I said "battle." Iraq is one front in a bigger war. And just like little Peleliu 63 years ago, people are saying it should have been bypassed. But here's the ugly truth: we are engaged. Your original plan never survives first contact with the enemy. But you stay and fight until you win. You do not withdraw just because the plan changes. You do not give back ground that you spilled blood to take. And most importantly, you DO NOT take the pressure off the enemy until he has departed the battlefield - be it on his heels or on his back.

The comparisons between the wars of the past and the war of the present are many. But if we want to have a future in which we can argue these further, we have to win. Like I said yesterday, the flags of losers end up in the museums of winners.

The answer

It's one of the most commonly heard phrases in the English language. "Violence is never the answer." But in film it seems, violence is always the answer. So I hope to get a new phrase out into the world. One that will catch on and become a part of the lexicon. With any luck you will someday buy a t-shirt that says this and I will receive a royalty check of 18 cents for it. A t-shirt that reads "2+2= Violence." ("2+2= Violence" is an official trademark of BobCorp. and cannot be copied or reproduced without the express written consent of Major League Baseball.) The last three films I've gone to have all shown very different sides of violence. So here we go. Let's get our violence on...

Your check for $0.18 is on the way Bob.

This is even more interesting when paired with See-Dubya's post at Hot Air about the forthcoming slew of anti-war films which all seem to have - at their hearts - depictions of a whole lot of violence. Apparently, for Hollywood, it doesn't matter which side of any argument you're on, so long as the explosions are big enough.

Sep 14, 2007

“(expletive) motivating, man …”

This story is a couple months old, but I just found it when looking into how my old MEU is doing. This is the most moto thing you will read for a month, at least...

NEAR KARMAH, Iraq (June 29, 2007) – A forward resuscitative surgical system never, ever stands still while treating a wounded Marine – until today, when Cpl. Gareth Hawkins, 23, demanded to reenlist before being medically evacuated.

While conducting counter-insurgency operations this morning with Battalion Landing Team 3/1’s Lima Company, Hawkins’ vehicle was hit by a massive improvised explosive device, shattering his right leg and injuring two other Marines. Within minutes of the blast, Hawkins was set to be flown out of the area and into the hands of higher medical care.

According to 1st Sgt. Gary Moran, Lima Co. first sergeant, Hawkins didn’t want to leave until he was reenlisted by battalion staff here, more than 14 kilometers from his position.

“Hawkins just got hit in a major blast that could’ve killed him,” Moran said, “and he said, ‘First Sergeant, I don’t want to fly out … I want to go to (the Combat Outpost) first’.”

The first sergeant said he was stunned. After assessing Hawkins’ condition, movement to the COP was approved.

While lying on a litter in the surgical area, Hawkins, straining words through extreme pain, gave his reasons for the unusual request.

“’Cause it’s motivating,” said the Spokane, Wash. native. “I was going to reenlist anyway, this is what I wanted to do.”

The Battalion Executive Officer, Maj. Kevin Gonzalez, along with the Career Retention Specialist Staff Sgt. Chandrash Malapaka, and several others crammed into the tiny room for the ceremony.

“We’re going to do the short version of this,” said the Executive Officer.

Raising his right hand, Hawkins took the oath of enlistment by 1st Lt. Warren A. Frank, his platoon commander. With no time for the usual formalities of backslaps and handshakes, Hawkins was immediately carried out via litter and evacuated.

Trophy

TRIANGLE, United States (AFP) — A banner once displayed in front of an abandoned Al-Qaeda safehouse in Iraq has found a new home at a US military museum.

The three-meter-long (10-foot-long) black flag, recovered by a battalion of marines in Fallujah in November 2004, is now on display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.

The flag "is believed to be the same banner seen in the atrocious videos broadcast all over the world displaying the torture and executions of many innocent civilians by insurgents and terrorists," according to the text accompanying the exhibit.

The flag was found, the narrative went on to say, "in a room that illustrated obvious signs of torture, including blood-stained floor mats and a wheel chair."

Handwritten text on the flag reads: "Kill them so they won't be trouble," and "Only one God. Mohammed is his messenger."

The artifact went on display two days ago at the museum, which has been open for less than a year.

"Our job is to collect the material for future," said museum director Lin Ezell, who rejected efforts to put the exhibition within a political or ideological context.

Well, I'll put it in context for you: the flags of losers end up in the museums of winners.

"Kill them so they won't be trouble"? That cuts both ways, you sonsabitches.

Phylum Democrata

In light of recent events this is even funnier than it might be otherwise.

I had never heard of the comic "Get Fuzzy" before I went to Iraq, but someone sent a care package with a "Get Fuzzy" book that I found hilarious, and I was an instant fan. Not only was it funny, but I related to it because I have cats and a dog, and the main character... well, the cat and dog's owner - the animals are the real main characters - wears a USMC t-shirt quite often in the strip. Of course, my cat would have toyed with the slug for half a day and then eaten it...

And rage that I feel when Brian Kilmeade announced after a montage on this morning's Fox and Friends,

"That's the only time that Fox News is going to be showing the planes crashing into the buildings today."

That was at 0840 eastern time. That means that unless you got your ass up real early on the west coast, you did not see a replay of the impacts at all today on Fox.

That is unacceptable.

That footage should be on a loop all day long. But we don't show it. And why? It might offend someone.

Americans have become so thin-skinned, so weak spined, that the very idea of offending anyone has itself become offensive. Why are Americans unwilling to get mad at anyone but other Americans in these past years? Since when is it always "our fault"? Since when did we "bring this on ourselves"? Since when do we live in a vacuum where America is the only one to blame for all the world's ills? Is America always wrong? Is nothing about this country worth defending? Is there nothing worth getting righteously angry about anymore?

Well I know what I'm angry about. And so I choose to defend this country - be it either by force or by spreading information - against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I'm late with this post today, which means that if you're on the east coast you'll probably read it on September 12th at the earliest. Yesterday, you observed a moment of silence, and you watched a memorial service on TV, and you maybe even waved an American flag at a rally. And I'm glad you did all those things... yesterday. What are you doing today? Are you committed to the ideal that you will defend this country and stand up for it?

Our enemies are committed. They think in terms of centuries, generations:

"The white man in Europe or America is our number-one enemy. ... Let us... plant the seeds of hatred, disgust, and revenge in the souls of [our] children. Let us teach these children from the time their nails are soft that the white man is the enemy of humanity, and that they should destroy him at the first opportunity." -Sayyid Qutb, "father" of the modern Islamist movement, circa 1949.*

Will you quit the fight after just six years?

I won't. I am ready to fight fire with fire and to feel anger - even hate - for those who hated me first. And I'm not afraid to admit it.